


More Than Masks

by seekingsquake



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Other, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3367379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper has to pick up the pieces, otherwise they'd all get lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Masks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coreoftheabyss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coreoftheabyss/gifts).



> I'm not affiliated with Marvel in any way, shape, or form.  
> Please do not repost or reupload this piece anywhere without consent. If you ask, I'm sure we can work something out :]

The mission had bombed. Hulk had lost it and hurt a handful of civilians, as well as Steve and Thor when they had tried to calm him. Tony had been badly beaten by the enemy fairly early on in the game and was forced to hang out on the sidelines, helpless and in pain, for the next four hours. He watched Hulk loose his cool, knew that Bruce would beat himself up over it later, and felt like a piece of shit.

When they dragged themselves back to the tower they needed medical attention, food, showers, sleep. Tony needed to let himself be cared for, Bruce needed to lay down and let himself recuperate. They went to the lab. Pepper watched with barely concealed concern, but let them go. Everyone had coping mechanisms, and as long as it wasn’t alcoholism and self harm, her boys deserved to have time to cope.

She didn’t know what they were doing down there, but as long as they stayed alive and in tact, she figured it wasn’t really her business. 

They were down there for nearly twelve hours before she decided that’d been long enough. She went down and had JARVIS let her in. She was met with a sight that had her heart in her throat. 

Bruce is sitting ramrod straight on a lab stool, his whole body trembling, his eyes wide open even though his exhaustion was evident. He isn’t wearing shoes even though the temperature in the lab has obviously been turned down. All his muscles are taut with tension to the point that it must be painful. 

Tony has Thor’s battle armour, Steve’s uniform and shield, and the suit all spread out in front of him, as well as schematics for all of it and what looks to be plans for new tranq arrows scattered on screens all around him. His skin is ashy with grime and exhaustion, and his eyes are black with a low burning anger.

"What are you doing?" she asks, her voice thick, addressing both of them and no one at the same time.

"He’s punishing himself," Tony responds tartly, not looking up from where he’s fiddling with one of the red metal boots, "and I’m making sure this never happens again."

She goes to Tony first, because she knew he had less practise in not giving in to his compulsions. She stands behind him and gently places her hands on his shoulders, feeling the tight muscles and massaging them until they give and soften under her fingers. A shudder runs through his body before he lets himself sink back against her. “That’s enough for now,” she murmurs against the crown of his head.

"But-,"

"It’ll all still be here after you’ve rested."

She hears him pull in a sharp, shaky breath and then he’s spun around on his stool and pressed his face into her abdomen. He nods once curtly, then stands and presses his face into her neck. “I’m tired.”

She soothes him by running her hands down his back, then sends him toward the elevator with a gentle push. “Soon,” she tells him. “Just let me get Bruce.”

Bruce is always harder to distract. He hasn’t responded at all to her presence; she can’t tell if he even knows she’s there. She uses almost the exact opposite of the tactic she uses on Tony, approaching Bruce from the front and reaching for his hands. “Bruce?”

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at her even though she’s blocking his view of anything else. His eyes are on her, but she knows that he’s looking through her, seeing something else.

"Bruce, Baby please."

He gives a slow shake of his head, and then manages to croak out, “You can’t.”

She doesn’t know what it is that she can’t, but she’s not sure she believes him. “Because you won’t let me.”

His voice is ruined from all Hulk’s roaring. “ _I_  can’t.”

She’s not in the habit of sugarcoating things, not even when it hurts her to hurt him. “You have to.”

The high pitched whine he emits is a sound she’s never heard from another human being before, but something akin to the sound DUM-E makes when he knows he shouldn’t have sprayed Tony with the fire extinguisher but had panicked and done it anyway. Her thumbs brush across his knuckles as she steps away from him, gently guiding him off his stool and toward where Tony’s waiting by the elevator. She wants to squeeze him in a hug because he seems to need it, but she doesn’t because he only comfortably accepts that sort of contact from one person, and it isn’t her. 

The elevator door slides open and she herds her boys inside. Tony wraps his arms around Bruce, forces the smaller man to rest his face on Tony’s shoulder, and she tries not to reach out for them both when Bruce’s shaking becomes so violent that it makes Tony shake along with him.

She gets them up to the penthouse and deposits them on the couch, has JARVIS start boiling water for the special sleepy time tea concoction that Bruce had made to aid her with her insomnia. She lights a couple of lavender scented candles, grabs some extra blankets from the linen closet and Bruce’s pillow from their bed, and quickly changes into her pyjamas. She shoves the pillow between where Bruce’s shoulder has pressed into Tony’s hip, then wraps a blanket around Bruce’s feet and legs. She drapes another loosely around Tony, leaving a pocket open on his abdomen where Bruce has been forced by the engineer to lay his head. Then she grabs the two mugs of tea and places them on the coffee table before crawling onto the couch and forcing Tony to lean back against her.

"We’re going to watch Life in a Day," she says to the room at large, and then the documentary starts playing on the television, the volume turned down and the windows darkened. She presses her face into Tony hair, lets her fingers gently brush through the curls of Bruce’s, but keeps her eyes on the screen. Tony is shaking again, Bruce is still forcing his eyes to stay open, and neither of them touch their tea. 

She wishes she didn’t have to say it, wishes that after all this time, after everything, that they’d believe it for themselves and give themselves a break. Wishes that they could support each other without tearing themselves apart. But she knows Tony isn’t there yet no matter how hard he works at it, knows that Bruce might be stubborn enough to never let himself believe it at all. She knows that she’s going to have to keep believing it for them, saying it for them. “You’re more than the heroes everyone wants you to be,” she whispers, trying not to get too emotional. “And I will still love you no matter what kind of mistakes you make.” She pauses, takes a deep breath before tightening her fingers in Bruce’s hair and saying, “You’re allowed to get it wrong sometimes.”

Immediately Bruce is trying to scramble away, but Tony holds him in place, forces him to still. Bruce struggles, but he’s still too tired, still in too much pain to put up much of a fight. Then both of them are crying; Tony silently, swiping at his tears before they get too far down his face, Bruce in little whimpers, his hands twined tightly together and pressed hard between his knees. Pepper shifts around them, sinks to the floor and crawls so that she’s sitting between them, below them. She catches Tony’s hands and presses kisses to his fingers, leans up and brushes her lips against Bruce’s temple, the curve of his brow. 

Tony curls tightly around Bruce, then tangles his fingers in Pepper’s hair. “I’m still going to love you,” she whispers, and Bruce shudders, but his eyes finally close.

Pepper doesn’t care for the Avengers. She actually sort of hates superheroes in general. Iron Man hurts Tony as much as he frees him, and sometimes it feels like Hulk is killing Bruce. Superheroes are killing her boys. But no matter how much she may hate Iron Man, hate Hulk, she loves Tony and Bruce. Loves them enough that she will walk unprompted through any fire to make sure they make it back from the weight of the masks they’re forced to wear. Loves them enough that most days she doesn’t even mind. They need her. “I’m still going to love you.” She says it as a reminder, but they’re both asleep now. She’ll just have to remind them again.


End file.
